Racing Champion Bob Sharp Joins Survive The Drive Board

Dec. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- LAKEVILLE, CT-Bob Sharp, a six-time national Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) champion, IMSA GTU champion and racing partner of the late Paul Newman, has joined the board of directors of SurvivetheDrive®, an organization principally aimed at educating teenage students about automotive safety and crash prevention. He joins Sam Posey and John Fitch (honorary, emeritus) as concerned representatives from the motorsports.  

Since 1996, the SurvivetheDrive organization president, Bob Green, a Skip Barber Racing School master instructor, has taken his message to 100,000 high school students in New England, New York, New Jersey and beyond. "Bob Sharp brings to SurvivetheDrive years of experience in motor sports and a commitment to behind-the-wheel instruction for young drivers," Green said.

Sharp is a former board chairman of In Control, a Massachusetts-based company that provides hands-on crash prevention training. Said Sharp: "I've admired what Bob has been doing for a long time. I'd love to see this thing expand." Among his interests are helping SurvivetheDrive locate a facility for behind-the-wheel instruction and developing computer simulations that could be used for crash-prevention training.

Sharp got his start in the automobile business in 1963, when he took over a two-bay Gulf service station In Ridgefield, Connecticut. He went on to own the largest Datsun, later Nissan, dealership in Connecticut. In '63, he began racing in a Datsun 310 Fairlady roadster. Then in '64 he headed up the factory-assisted East Coast Datsun Racing Team and went on to win the SCCA championships in Datsun Z cars and sedans. Paul Newman joined the effort in 1972 driving a Datsun 510 and in the '80's drove Datsun Z cars and various Datsun products in the famous professional Trans Am Series having joined forces as Newman-Sharp Racing.

 Survive the Drive is an independent, not-for-profit, service organization that offers an educational program aimed at preventing crashes by teenage drivers.  For more information, visit

www.survivethedrive.org.

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SurvivetheDrive®, is an independent, not-for-profit, evidence-based, driver crash-preventive educational program that delivers an upbeat, serious message using the laws-of-physic. Judgment and attitude are influenced with truth, facts and experience.